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AIDS Group Renews Call for Condoms in Porn After HIV-Positive Test

Rhett PardonJun 11, 2009 4:30 PM PDT

LOS ANGELES — It’s been five years since members and proponents of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation circled the Larry Flynt Building in Beverly Hills and mounted a protest to force the adult industry into submission over a condom policy.

Half a decade later AIDS Healthcare, which renewed calls Thursday for legislation that would require the use of condoms by actors performing in porn videos, said it might parade in front of the Wilshire Boulevard headquarters once more.

“We may just do that again,” AIDS Healthcare Michael Weinstein. “But first we are going to find a legislator to author and carry a bill.”

AIDS Healthcare previously had tried to sponsor similar legislation but had difficulty finding a legislator willing to participate in pushing a condoms-required bill.

The Los Angeles organizations efforts come just one day after XBIZ reported that an unnamed performer tested HIV-positive. As a result, four adult performers are under quarantine under the auspices of the AIM Healthcare group.

The quarantined performers will have to test negative for two 14-day testing periods before the quarantine is lifted.

Weinstein claimed the adult industry’s past dealing with quarantines has been uneven and that it's now time to craft legislation to make porn productions go condom-only.

He pointed to a study that said in 2004, during the previous HIV outbreak in the industry, only two of the approximately 200 adult film production companies in Southern California required their performers to use condoms.

“Legislators need to put aside their squeamishness and draft a bill as a worker safety provision of California’s Labor Code akin to how the code currently requires the use of hard hats and other garments and barriers as safety precautions on certain California work sites and locations,” he said. “It is not appropriate for adult actors to be in condom-less productions.”

“The industry has the power to prevent this,” he said.

In related news Cal/OSHA said Thursday it is mounting a probe relative to the recent HIV exposure.